Domestic Bliss
by Zute
Summary: Anders and Neria go on vacation with dreams of a simple life of domestic bliss.
1. Chapter 1

**Note: **This is dedicated to CynderJenn who provided the inspiration. It's about Neria's and Anders's vacation dream of living like regular people, that I briefly mention in _The Lyrium War._

**Domestic Bliss**

Neria went through the Vigil's library looking at the book titles. "Traditional Ferelden Cooking", "300 Stew Recipes", "Managing a Household Made Simple", were the most promising titles. She added them to her stack. Not that she would have time to read them now, but once they got to the cottage she could study the topic. Meanwhile she was still Warden Commander and Arlessa and there was a lot to do before she and Anders went on their six-week long holiday.

"What are you reading these day, Neria?" Varel asked her when she ran into him, her arms loaded with books.

"Oh," she chirped happily, "just books about how to cook and manage things. I've never really lived in an actual house like a real person. It's always been the Tower, the Vigil, the palace, or else camping. No one ever let me do anything when we camped." She shrugged.

Varel looked amused. "And you actually want to live like a common householder?"

She smiled. "Oh yes! It'll be romantic. We'll live off the land. I'll learn to cook. Anders can fish and hunt, well we both can."

Varel smiled indulgently. _She has no idea, _he thought. "Most people find it rather tedious, I think," he suggested.

"Tedious? I would think it would be freeing, not to be so dependent on others. Did I mention romantic? Waking up at dawn and eating a hearty breakfast and enjoying a hot steaming cup of tea while the sun rises. Then it's off to do chores. After that, we can sit by the seashore and... fish. Or swim, or have a picnic."

Neria practically glowed as she recited what her days at the cottage would be like. Varel was charmed and amused. He had a feeling the two mages would be helpless as babes, but he didn't want to spoil their fun.

Finally the day of their departure came. All their fellow Grey Wardens had been giving them advice on how to survive. Neria had taken copious notes, but she thought Oghren's advice was probably suspect. Sigrun had wisely withheld her advice. She could tell them how to survive in the Deep Roads, but she knew better than give advice on surface living. Just before they pulled away, Oghren loaded one more thing into their cart.

"Here you go, you might need this more than I do." It was a small cask of something. Most likely alcoholic.

Neria beamed at the dwarf. "Why thanks! That's very generous." She climbed up onto the seat of the wagon, next to Anders. They sat there a moment. Neria waited for the wagon to jolt to a start. Nothing happened. She looked over at Anders, he was looking at her expectantly.

"Um, buttercup," he whispered, "how do we make it go?"

The mages whispered together for a moment then Neria jumped down and walked over to Nathaniel. "We don't actually know how to drive a cart, can you give us some tips?"

The Wardens all laughed uproariously while Nathaniel gave them a quick lesson. Neria and Anders were both blushing furiously, feeling horribly stupid.

They got back up onto the seat and Anders slapped the reigns and muttered "Gee" to the horse. At first nothing happened then he repeated it again, louder, and the horse finally started forward. As they pulled out of the gates and disappeared from view the Wardens started placing bets.

"Ten gold they're back in a week," Oghren said.

"Five says they don't actually make it to the cottage," Nathaniel bet.

Varel generously gave them two weeks. They were Grey Wardens, after all. They'd trekked through the mountains to reach Orzammar with nothing but the clothes on their back and a few weapons. The mages had made their survival in those harsh conditions possible, if not comfortable. But what Varel didn't know was that Anders and Neria had made a pact not to use magic, unless they absolutely had to.


	2. Chapter 2

**The Trip**

They got just out of sight of the Vigil when the horse stopped and refused to budge.

"This horse is playing us for suckers," Anders wisely observed. He tried ever word he remembered Nathaniel telling him, to make the horse go, plus a few new ones.

"I'm reasonably sure 'giddy-fucking-up' isn't one of the words, darling," Neria pointed out helpfully.

Anders glared at her and handed her the reigns. "Fine! You try. Maybe it's just me."

"Gee!" Neria said strongly and slapped the reigns like she had seen Anders do. The horse ignored her. "Gee-up!" she shouted, slapping the reigns harder, but the horse she peacefully stared off into the distance. "Maybe it's... broken?"

"You mean sick?" Anders asked.

Neria shrugged. "It looks okay to me. I think it is just being perverse. Don't wagon drivers usually have whips? Maybe horses disobey a lot and have to be reminded to move."

"We don't have a whip," Anders pointed out.

"This probably qualifies as '_absolutely have to_' wouldn't you say?" Neria asked. "We won't even get to our cottage if we don't get this horse moving again."

Anders nodded. "Definitely. We don't have a whip and insults aren't working. It needs some other incentive to move."

Neria yelled "Gee!" again and slapped the reigns, then she launched a tiny lightning bolt into it's backside. The horse looked startled and began to move at a much invigorated pace. She looked at Anders and shrugged.

The horse took them more seriously after that.

**Arrival**

They arrived that evening, just before the sun began to set.

"Oh, Anders. Look!" Neria breathed rapturously. "It's perfect."

The cottage was covered with a climbing rose which was in bloom with hundreds, or thousands, of tiny single pink flowers. They could hear the sea crashing below the cliff that the cottage sat upon. A pink cobblestone pathway marked the entrance to the house.

"It is pretty," Anders agreed. "Smell that fresh sea air?"

Neria scrambled down from the wagon. "Let's get the horse put away then we can unload the wagon."

They looked at the horse trying to figure out how to detach it from it's... stuff. They fumbled around and it nearly kicked Anders once. Neria paralyzed it while they worked on it.

"It was absolutely necessary. It wouldn't do to have one of us get mauled by a horse," she said.

"We have to remember how we're doing this, buttercup, otherwise we'll never get back."

"I'll take notes," she got out some paper and a pen and started drawing furiously. The sun was setting and she was losing her light, it was going to make her note-taking impossible.

"I need a light, Anders. Did we pack a lantern or an oil lamp?"

He sighed. "I don't remember seeing one."

"We're not doing too good avoiding magic." She conjured a glowing wisp so she could see her paper again.

"There!" Anders finally got the horse free of the cart and all the other stuff hanging off him and he knew enough to put a bridle on him. He walked the animal around to the side of the house where there was a small shed.

Neria came running when she heard his shriek.

"What is it?" she asked.

Anders was batting at something invisible around him. "Spiders! Big ones."

Neria drew her staff, expecting to see the Queen Spider again, and pulled open the door. It was true the shed was full of webs, but the spiders were only the size of her hand. Still... She zapped them with chain lightning and burned away the webs.

"Maybe we should just forget this no magic thing until we get settled in?" Anders suggested.

"Good idea," Neria agreed.

They put the horse away and started to leave when it neighed piteously.

"What's wrong with it?" Neria asked.

"Maybe it's hungry? We didn't feed it anything today."

Neria nodded. "I think you're right."

"Next question is, what does it eat?" Anders said.

"Oh wait!" Neria bounced happily. "I know this...

"The **horse** (_Equus ferus caballus_) is a ungulate mammal, a member of the subspecies of the family Equidae...  
Horses are herbivores with a digestive system adapted to a forage diet of grasses and other plant material, consumed steadily throughout the day. Therefore, compared to humans, they have a relatively small stomach but very long intestines to facilitate a steady flow of nutrients."

Neria recited from memory. "I forgot I read a book on them when we got some at the Keep."

Anders was often astounded at Neria's memory. She could read a book and nearly recite it from cover to cover, but could hardly remember an appointment.

"So we need to feed it a huge amount of grass everyday?" Anders said. "There's a fenced pasture. Can we leave it outside at night?"

"Let's put it in the pasture now, and we'll bring it in before we go to bed."

Anders led the horse to the pasture and turned it free.

That done they began to unload the cart. Neria was the first to step inside the cottage.

"Oh Anders!" she squealed. "It's just perfect!" The setting sun shone through the West window, illuminating the kitchen and the small common room. The furnishings were quaint and looked comfortable. There were logs piled into a large fireplace, ready to be lit and oil lamps were built into the walls.

"It looks nice," Anders commented. "I'll light the fire." He dug through his pack and pulled out a flint. He struck it around the brick fireplace. "How do I get the sparks to light the logs?" he asked. Neria came to peer over his shoulder.

"Isn't there something that the flint works with? I always seem to remember it being mentioned in tandem with another word..." she bit her lip. "I don't remember, now."

Anders huffed, getting impatient. "Magic then. This is ridiculous. How do people ever get anything done without it?" He lobbed a tiny fireball onto the waiting logs and they caught immediately. "Maybe this no-magic idea, isn't such a good thing, Neria," he complained. "It's taking us forever to do anything."

"This is why so many apostates are captured and returned to the tower, my love. They can't function without their magic. It seems like such a simple thing for other people to live without magic. We're extremely intelligent, well-educated, we _should _have no problem with this. We have advantages those people don't."

"Yeah, magic," Anders grumbled quietly.

"Do you want to unload the rest of the stuff while I make dinner?" Neria asked.

"Sure, buttercup. What are we having?"

"I thought I could make some soup. There's some dried beans and we have some dried beef in our supplies. We just need a little water, I think. That... should make soup. Right?"

"You're the expert, darling. The closest I ever came to cooking was a fireball accident in the Tower," he told her.

Neria found a pot in the kitchen and stared at the stove. She finally found the firebox and found it was pre-loaded with wood. She decided to really try to deal with this puzzle without magic. She took one of the smaller sticks of wood to the fireplace and held it into the flames until it caught fire.

"What are you doing?" Anders asked her.

"Lighting the stove," she said, proud she had figured it out.

"Oh! I see. The little sticks catch fire easily, don't they?" Anders began to see a possible solution to making the flint work.

Neria trotted back to the kitchen with her flaming stick and tossed it into the firebox. It burned but failed to light any of the larger bits of wood. Anders heard a small curse come out of the kitchen and felt the familiar tingle of magic being cast. Soon the grumbling was replaced with coughing.

"Help! Anders!"

Anders sprinted into the kitchen waving away the cloud of choking smoke obscuring everything.

"Is something on fire?" he asked.

"Just the stove! Why is it making all this smoke?" she said between coughs.

"Wait... isn't there a chimney or a vent or something?"

"Oh!" Neria remembered seeing a pipe sticking up through the roof. She groped around in the smokey fog looking for it again. There was a lever... she pushed it and heard something open. "I think I found it."

Anders rushed around the house opening windows to get the smoke out. Finally he resorted to conjuring a modified blizzard and strong winds cleared out the lingering smoke.

Neria poured beans and water into the pot and stuffed some pieces of dried beef in. She covered it and left to cook on the stove. She went to help Anders unpack when they heard the strange hissing sound.

"What is that?" Anders asked.

"A cat?" Neria wondered. She went to investigate the sound and found the pot bubbling over, the water hissing as it bubbled into the flames of the stove. Neria picked up the pot by the handle and screamed in pain. _The damn thing was hot! _Anders ran into the kitchen and found his wife with tears of pain streaking her face.

"Oh! Sweetheart!" He picked up her hand and fixed her burn.

"How are you supposed to move the pot?" she asked.

"A force field?" Anders suggested.

Inspiration struck and she folded up a towel several times and was able to use it to grasp the handle. "Okay, one mystery solved."

"Is supper ready?" Anders asked hopefully.

"I think so. It was bubbling. I think that means it is ready." She found some bowls and spoons in the cupboards and poured out the soup for them. They sat down at the table.

"Isn't this romantic?" Neria said. "Just you and me all on our own!"

Anders smiled at his wife. "It is. Who knew we could be so domestic?"

He picked up his spoon and dug into the soup. It looked like hot water with large chunks of dried beef. The beans looked rather like gravel sitting in the bottom of his bowl. He was reasonably certain they weren't supposed to rattle when he stirred his bowl. But, it had been a long day and he was going to try his best to eat the soup. He sipped it, carefully. It tasted like slightly beef flavored hot water. He put a bean into his mouth and tried to chew it. It was as hard as gravel. But there was no way he was going to say anything to Neria, so he swallowed the bean whole.

Neria meanwhile took her first taste. Her face fell. "Ugh. Oh no. The beans are still hard. This doesn't taste like soup at all!" Her eyes filled with tears. "It's more like... dirty dishwater!"

Anders smiled sadly at her. "We can fish out the beef and eat it."

For the first time since they arrived Neria felt utterly defeated. If defeating the blight had depended upon her mastering skills even the simplest peasant seemed to know instinctively, Ferelden would have been utterly lost.

The mages finished their supper and Neria cleaned the dishes while Anders put the horse in the shed. They were quite ready for bed after that. The day had been long, tiring and somewhat defeating. But cuddling up together in bed made them both feel better. It wasn't long before they were asleep.


End file.
